On the Formation of Cup-like Ion Beam Distributions in the Plasma Sheet Boundary Layer.

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  • On the Formation of Cup-like Ion Beam D

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Abstract

In the end of the 1970ies fast ion flows were discovered, jetting along the boundary of the plasma sheet (PSBL) in the Earth's magnetotail. Now, with the help of new technology devices on board of GALILEO and the GEOTAIL spacecraft, more and more exciting details of the three-dimensional beam velocity distributions are being discovered like, e.g., filaments and rings. In order to understand the origin of these structures and in order to use them for remote diagnostics of acceleration processes, we have derived a quasi-adiabatic theory of the non-linear dynamics of strong acceleration in two-dimensional current sheet fields. Together with the typical magnetotail velocity dispersion our approach reveals, in general, cup-like ion beam velocity distributions. In dependence on the accelerating current sheet electro-magnetic fields the cup-like ion beam velocity distributions may degenerate either to the well known lima-bean shape or to ring distributions. We illustrate our findings by test particle simulations of the beam velocity distribution functions and compare them with ring distributions, observed by GEOTAIL.

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